After decades of running her kinky Syrian lingerie store in the Hamidiya souk of Damascus, Teta Haniya comes to America bearing gifts. With over 60 years of Islamic teachings on seduction, and an arsenal of kitschy electronics, Teta Haniya hijacks the western panty, triggering the sexual liberation of the American woman.
Teta Haniya’s secrets is a line of electronic lingerie inspired by a Syrian tradition of hacking electronic toys, integrating them into panties, and selling them in the most casual of fashions at popular ‘Damascan’ souks. The line consists of five Victoria’s Secret panties hacked Syrian-style according to literal interpretations of Arabic expressions of seduction. The biggest lingerie store in the United States isn’t so liberal after all…
Teaching a workshop called Project Walkway led by Norene Leddy with Jessica Banks. The workshop is part of the Girls Eye View program where 8 high school girls come in after school for 6 weeks to learn about electronics and wearables.
random search is a subtle, reactive undergarment. It records, shares and analyses the experience of invasive airport searches on behalf of our silent, abiding, fearful bodies.
Here is the truth: this line, at which we must stand until we are allowed to walk across. At the frontier, our liberty is stripped away… we enter the universe of control….We submit to scrutiny, to inspection, to judgment. We must be passive, docile. To be otherwise is to be suspect. —Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line
Aside from exotic Daisy Duck with her dance of the seven veils, and the mute abiding second class citizen in a black burka, not many images spring to mind when thinking of an Arab woman. Arabiia is a caricature of media stereotypes typically associated with arab women. The convertible outfit is equipped with two servo motors and a switch. It enables its wearer to voluntarily choose which of two extreme representations fits her mood and audience.
